A cold tub and a ten-mile walk

He was as tall as I was, brown-faced and square-chinned, with a keen look about him, as though he couldn’t wait to have a cold tub and a ten-mile walk. A Christian, I shouldn’t wonder, and no smoking the day before the match.

Flashman's Lady, p.15, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, Christian.

Flashman on campaigning

…sufficient to say that I bilked, funked, ran for dear life and screamed for mercy as the occasion demanded, all through that ghastly campaign, and came out with four medals, the thanks of Parliament, an audience of our Queen, and a handshake from the Duke of Wellington. It’s astonishing what you can make out of a bad business if you play your hand right and look noble at the proper time.

Flashman's Lady, p.14, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, noble.

Birth of a cricketer

...Rugby taught me only two things really well, survival and cricket, for I saw even at the tender age of eleven that while bribery, fawning, and deceit might ensure the former, they weren’t enough to earn a popular reputation, which is a very necessary thing. for that, you had to shine at games, and cricket was the only one for me.

Flashman's Lady, p.12, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, cricket.

Harry Flashman's schooldays

I snivelled and bought my way to safety when I was a small boy, [at school] and bullied and tyrannized when I was a big one; how the d---l I’m not in the House of Lords by now, I can’t think.

Flashman's Lady, p.12, Pan edition, 1979.

Cricket, the Flashman way

It may strike you that old Flashy’s approach to our great summer game wasn’t quite that of you school-storybook hero, apple-cheeked and manly, playing up unselfishly for the honour of the side and love of his gallant captain, revelling in the jolly rivalry of bat and ball while his carefree laughter rings across the green sward. No, not exactly; personal glory and cheap wickets however you could get ’em, and d--n the honour of the side, that was my style, with a few quid picked up in side-bets and plenty of skirt-chasing afterwards among the sporting ladies who used to ogle us big hairy fielders over their parasols at Canterbury Week.

Flashman's Lady, p.12, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, cricket.

Yokels in gaiters

But now they [cricketers] shuffle around the crease like yokels in gaiters, and that great muffin Grace bleats like a ruptured choirboy if a fast ball comes near him.

Flashman's Lady, p.11, Pan edition, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, WG Grace.

And that lot

‘…Flashman’s brutality had disgusted most even of his own intimate friends …’ No, by God, there was one downright, shameful lie – the kind of friends I had at Rugby you couldn’t have disgusted, not Speedicut and Rattle and that lot…

Flashman in the Great Game, p.335, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Memories of Tom Brown

…oh, aye, that brought back Master Brown to memory sharp enough. He was the mealy, freckled little villain who tried to steal my sweepstake ticket, damn him – a pious, crawling little toad-eater who prayed like clockwork and was forever sucking up to Arnold and Brooke – ‘yes, sir, please, sir, I’m a bloody Christian, sir’…

Flashman in the Great Game, p.334, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, Tom Brown.

Suffering ignobly borne

…what I was thinking was, by God, you don’t deserve it [the Victoria
Cross], you know, you shifty old bastard of a Flashy – not if it’s courage they’re after… but if they hand out medals for luck, and survival through sheer funk, and suffering ignobly borne… well grab ’em with both hands, my boy…

Flashman in the Great Game, p.331, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Sudden keen pain

He reached up, and I felt a sudden keen pain in my left tit as he stuck the pin in – I gasped and looked down, and there it was, on its ribbon, the shabby looking little bronze cross against my jacket…

Flashman in the Great Game, p.330, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, Victoria Cross.

That ain’t how people die

As I scrambled up I saw she was writhing in the dust; her scarf and helmet were gone, she was kicking and clawing at her body, and her face was twisted and working in agony, with her hair half across it. It was hideous, and I could only crouch there, gazing horrified. Oh, if it were a novel I could tell you that I ran to her, and cradled her head against me and kissed her, while she looked up at me with a serene smile and murmured something before she closed her eyes, as lovely in death as she’d been in life – but that ain’t how people die, not even the Rani of Jhansi. She arched up once more, still tearing at herself, and then she flopped over, face down, and I knew she was a goner.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.315-6, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, die.

A quick look

I was roaring above the noise, at her, swearing I loved her and that she could still save herself, and she shot me a quick look as she took the mare’s bridle – just for an instant, but it’s stayed with me for fifty years, and you may think me an old fool and fanciful, but I’ll swear there were tears in her eyes…

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.314-5, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, look.

Sane in solitary confinement

I’ve heard of chaps who kept themselves sane in solitary confinement by singing all the hymns they knew, or proving the propositions of Euclid, or reciting poetry. Each to his taste: I’m no hand at religion, or geometry, and the only respectable poem I can remember is an Ode to Horace which Arnold made me learn as a punishment for farting at prayers. So instead I compiled a mental list of all the women I’d had in my life, from the sweaty kitchen maid in Leicestershire when I was fifteen, up to the half-caste piece I’d been reprimanded for at Cawnpore, and to my astonishment there were four hundred and seventy-eight of them, which seemed rather a lot, especially since I was counting return engagements. It’s astonishing really, when you think how much time it must have taken up.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.309, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Clinging and weeping

…she was clinging and weeping and slobbering over me as though I were Little Willie the Collier’s Dying Child.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.291, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Grin and agree

Speaking from a safe distance, I can say it was a sound scheme. Hearing it proposed for the first time I thought it was fit to loosen the bowels of a bronze statue – but the hellish thing is, whatever a general suggests, you can do nothing but grin and agree.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.277-8, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, bowels.

Heavy speculation

One thing I'm sure of: there was twice as much treasure destroyed as carried away, and we officers were too busy bagging our share to do anything about it. I daresay a philosopher would have made heavy speculation about the scene, if he'd had time to spare from filling his pockets.

Flashman in the Great Game, pp.265-6, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, loot.

Spoils of war

It was a great bloody carnival, with everyone making the most of the war: I recall one incident, in a Lucknow courtyard (I believe it may have been the Begum’s palace) in which I saw Highlanders, their gory bayonets laid aside, smashing open chests that were simply stuffed with jewels, and grinning idiot little Goorkhas breaking mirrors for sheer sport and wiping their knives on silks and fabrics worth a fortune – they didn’t know any better. There were Sikh infantry dancing with gold chains and necklaces round their necks, an infantry subaltern staggering under a great enameled pot overflowing with coins, a naval gunner bleeding to death with a huge shimmering bolt of cloth-of-gold clasped in his arms – there were dead and dying men everywhere, our own fellows as well as pandies, and desperate hand-to-hand fighting going on just over the courtyard wall; muskets banging, men shrieking, two Irishmen coming to blows over a white marble statuette smeared with blood, and Billy Russell stamping and damning his luck because he had no rupees on him to buy the treasure which private soldiers were willing to trade away for the price of a bottle of rum.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.264, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, loot.

Gentlemen of the press

I knew it was as good as over when Billy Russell of The Times showed up to join Campbell’s final march on Lucknow – it’s a sure sign of victory when the correspondents gather like vultures.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.263, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Where's Flashman?

…it looked very gallant, and has since been commemorated in oils, with camels and niggers* looking on admiringly, and the Chiefs all shaking hands. (I’m there too, like John the Baptist on horseback, with one aimless hand up in the air, which is rot, because at the time I was squatting in the latrine working the dysentery bugs out of my system and wishing I was dead.)

Flashman in the Great Game, p.261, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

*Flashman's use of racial epitahs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be taken as tacit support of his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.